


Euphoria

by futureboy (PokeRowan)



Category: Bill & Ted (Movies)
Genre: Bill accidentally hits on a dude, Epiphanies, First Kiss, Frottage, Gay 90s, Gay Bar, Hand Jobs, M/M, and Ted gets some great advice from some surly lesbians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 15:07:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13615938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PokeRowan/pseuds/futureboy
Summary: Bill and Ted have been able to legally drink for a little while now, and despite not being big on alcohol, they head out to try some overly sugary drinks. (They fail to notice a very crucial element about the bar they're in.)





	Euphoria

Although it was his idea to begin with, and although Bill ended up choosing a most peculiarly garish bar to attend, Ted has to admit that he’s enjoying himself more than he thought he would.

It figures. New, exciting adventures - with his best friend and musical companion, of course - are usually a winner.

Ted isn’t actually interested in drinking. The rite of passage? It’ll be a nice touch. The actual plan is to go out, celebrate their 21st birthdays having passed, _finally_ , and order the kookiest things on the drinks menu. Then they’ll take in some terrible music whilst they sober up, and in the early hours of the morning, drive the van to a deserted layby and write some tunes in the back. Now _that_ was shaping up to be a perfect evening.

It still is a great evening, to be fair. It had just been a spectacularly _odd_ one.

“This is the place,” Bill says, with an air of certainty.

“It’s not too far to walk back to our ride from here. Bill, my friend?”

“Yes, Ted?”

“You’ve made an excellent choice,” Ted confirms. They air guitar enthusiastically; Bill throws his ID into the road by accident.

The bar is in Pomona, and it’s called Euphoria. (It took Missy correcting them to stop them pronouncing it as _You-Poor-Ee-Ah_.) The sign is as discreet as a neon sign can be, tucked away at the end of the street across from the parking lot, and there is a small line outside waiting to be let in.

Bill approaches the fare booth first. The bouncer rakes his eyes over him, practically studying his ID as though he has to memorise it, and eventually lets him through.

“Dude,” Ted says, following him in shortly afterwards, “that security guy was totally questioning whether you were of age.”

“No way,” says Bill, shouting slightly over the beat of the music. “He smiled at me!”

“You do look startlingly youthful, Bill, you have to admit it.”

“Shut up, Ted.”

It’s not said with any malice. Bill turns back to look up at him, grin reaching his eyes, and eyes reflecting back the blue glow of the dance floor, and Ted grins right back at him. _They’re in a bar_. This was hardcore.

“Dude, check it out. Cocktails.”

There aren’t many people about - it’s still early - so Bill is able to edge his way over to the bar relatively quickly. “Really?” he says skeptically. Squinting at the menu, he leans forward on his elbows to get a closer look.

“Yeah, it’s supposed to be classier, right? Look. Martinis. Strawberry Daiquiri. Cos-mo-poli-tan,” he points. The board is bright with prices and names - some of them, he’s even heard of.

But Ted can tell that Bill’s not buying it just yet.

“Besides,” he adds. “You don’t even _like_ beer that much, Bill.”

Bill seems to consider this: “and I _do_ like strawberry,” he admits.

“See?” Ted says, victorious at last, “if we’re going to order our first drink from a bar, we might as well _like_ what we order! A strawberry daiquiri, please--”

“What are you gonna get?”

Ted looks him dead in the eyes, trying not to laugh: “and a Sex on the Beach, too.”

The bartender shoots them an amused look. (Ted figures that she must find the name of the cocktail funny, too.) He’s still snorting out suppressed little bursts of mirth when it comes to pay; Bill has pulled himself up onto one of the bar stools, and he’s just ever-so-slightly too short for his sneakers to touch the floor, so Ted tries his best to stop laughing. Height has historically been a sore spot for his companion.

“Hey, thanks, Ted.”

“No problem,” he says, trying not to stare at how Bill takes a teeny sip through a straw and swings his feet. “How is it?”

“Dude, it was a _great_ call. What about yours?”

Ted takes a thoughtful sip too, and then a much larger mouthful. “Tastes like peaches,” he says, unsure, as cranberry juice dries out the back of his tongue. “Most intriguing. Hey, Bill, we should totally swap and order what we had _in reverse_ later.”

“Excellent idea, Ted!” says Bill enthusiastically.

Most of his words come out of his mouth lopsidedly, Ted has noticed before - affected by a smile, or a pout, or confusion. But his own name never does, and Ted’s not really sure about what that signifies.

More people have started to filter in. There’s a lot of garish, shiny fashion around them; he starts to worry that he’s underdressed for the occasion, not having given much thought to the clothes he’d thrown on before their trip. He’s pretty much all in black, save for the bright red patch he’d sewn onto his cut off jeans. R•EVOL•UTION, it says. Ted’s not great at drawing, but he’s got a most decent handwriting style, and ever since he’d worked out that this particular motif had the word ‘love’ backwards in it, he’d been obsessed.

Bill, on the other hand? He always looks like he fits in, no matter where he goes. He’s a man who treads the fine line between casual and stylish, every single day. He, at least, seems to have considered his outfit tonight - the off-white Converse went with the baggy off-white band tee, tucked into some _flared shorts_. Bill is the only person Ted has ever met who can pull off high-waisted bell-bottom shorts, but in all honesty, he’s glad that someone else can do it, so that he doesn’t have to.

“What do you think of the bar, dude?”

Ted thinks it over. “It’s almost as good as the one in the Old West,” he decides.

“Great thinking. I’ll drink to that,” Bill grins, and he clinks their glasses together. The sight of him taking a measured sip of daiquiri through a straw is not quite as poignant as swigging an enormous bottle of beer, but it _is_ a far more enjoyable beverage.

“And the music?”

“Oh, it’s not Van Halen or Metallica or Anthrax, that’s for sure. But that’s not always a terrible thing.”

Woah. Sometimes his counterpart is extremely wise. “Yeah,” Ted says, over the rhythmic tones of Wham!, “yeah, you’re right, Bill! We’re... musicians of culture. Experiencers of genre. How do we know what’s good if we haven’t worked out what’s bad?”

“Ex _ac_ tly,” Bill says, pointing the tiny straw at him.

“Who cares if Club Tropicana is the kind of thing that Missy listens to? We can’t avoid it forever.”

The bar is starting to get elbow to elbow, but it suddenly eases when a new song starts up. The two stare in wonder as patrons flock to the dance floor, drinks in hand, and beside him, Bill downs the last of his own.

“You okay here for a little bit? I gotta use the restroom.”

“Sure thing, Bill.”

“Cool,” he says, hopping down from the barstool, “I’ll be right back for round two, okay?”

And then Ted is left alone.

He presses his back against the bar, takes another mouthful of his drink - _heh_ , Sex on the Beach - and surveys the dance floor with unmitigated bemusement.

 

* * *

 

After some brief stumbling in the dark corridors - man, after eleven PM, the lights really like to dim down, huh? - Bill locates the men’s room and pushes open the door.

“Look, all I’m saying is, have a bit of decency, _dude--_ ”

He immediately wishes he hadn’t.

There’s four… No, _five_ guys standing off with each other, one duo and one trio head to head. Bill can’t tell if the two guys are angry at each other, or angry at the three dudes trying to break them up, but they look _undoubtedly_ mad. All out of breath and frowny. One of them has white and red marks around his wrist, in the outlined shape of fingers.

“What’s indecent is you comin’ in here and banging on the door,” says one of the duo.

“Yeah, you didn’t have to interrupt us,” adds the other.

They must have been starting a fight with each other, or something.

“Can’t you take it outside?” says the leader of the trio that broke them up. He’s got _most_ dashing hair, like Tom Cruise on the cover of Rolling Stone. And Bill’s never ever seen a mesh top like that in the flesh, before - not in pink, anyway.

One of the dudes by his elbow pipes up: “yeah, you want security to find you in here? There’s that deserted layby off sixty, past the CBS billboard. Ain’t no cops gonna find you there.”

“You don’t know that,” one of them spits back.

Good Hair Dude turns to Bill. “Hey, man,” he says, “what’s your take?”

Bill falters, because honestly, he really just wanted to pee and get back to Ted. But questions deserve answers, so he tries to impart some wisdom:

“Well,” he says, mulling it over, “I suppose that passionate personal subjects _should_ be kept out of the restroom. It is a _most_ unhygienic place to have an encounter.”

Good Hair Dude gestures at the duo, as if to say, _see?_

“Yeah, fine,” the first guy says, face falling as he’s defeated. “I guess… Yeah. Let’s go, Jack--”

Bill wanders over to the urinals, and offers a sympathetic smile to them when they brush by.

“Thanks, man,” says Good Hair Dude, as his friends duck into the stalls. “We don’t like to get a reputation in here, so...”

“No problem, Good Hair Dude,” Bill says brightly, and goes to wash his hands. The dude in question runs a hand through his locks self-consciously, and gives a little embarrassed laugh. As Bill backs out of the restroom door again, he decides the man needs an extra confidence-boost: “by the by,” he adds, shooting some finger guns his way. “ _Savoury_ shirt.”

Good Hair Dude’s face goes fully, happily red. It’s most endearing.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, you. Metalhead. Whatcha doin’, scoping?”

Ted jumps. He doesn’t have any cocktail left to throw down himself, thankfully, but he hastily sets the glass on the bar anyway.

The voice had come from his left. “Yeah. Otter boy,” says a short, tomboyish-looking woman, “you cruising?”

He doesn’t know what that means, so he says, “I hope not.”

“Your first time, here, then?”

There’s a taller, thinner girl next to her, ordering something at the bar; she isn’t paying attention. Ted feels most exposed.

“...Yeah. I just came because my friend wanted to,” he says cautiously.

“Ah,” says the short woman, like she knows something Ted doesn’t, and sticks her hand out. She’s got a denim jacket on with a huge chrome ring sewn to the shoulder, and a rather disproportionate undercut. “I’m Pez, this is Laney.”

“I’m Ted… Ted ‘Theodore’ Logan. Those are sensational names,” he offers, because he knows rock ‘n’ roll, and he knows metal, and they have that _sound_ to them.

“They call her that because she can’t keep her mouth shut for two goddamn seconds,” says the taller woman, turning back around with two highball glasses in hand. “If you ain’t cruisin’, Metalhead, then whatcha doin’? You bi or something?”

Ted, confused, looks around. “By what?” he asks.

“That’s a no, then,” Pez snorts, and accepts her drink from Laney. “Don’t worry, babe, I think I’m safe. Ted here is, uh… Waiting for a _friend_ to get back.”

“Ah,” says Laney, in the exact same tone Pez had used earlier. “First time in a bar like this, you’re with a buddy. I get it.”

“The cocktails are supreme,” Ted says, “but I’m _totally_ out of my depth here. I’m most uncertain of bar etiquette.”

Pez and Laney share a smirk with each other.

“We’ll teach you,” Pez says, “and then you can show your friend your moves, okay?”

“Are we dancing?” says Ted, alarmed. He knows how to headbang and two-step, but this doesn’t exactly seem like the type of establishment which would take kindly to it.

Pez is unperturbed. “Oh, yeah! You face each other, you bop to a moderately-paced song… A little touching… You let the lights catch your eyes, that kinda thing. Yeah. We’ll get dancing, then you tell him what he means to you, and see where it goes from there.”

“You think that’ll make a good evening?”

Laney rolls her eyes.

“I think that’ll make an _excellent_ evening,” says Pez kindly, and Ted perks up at her choice of language. “It’s the gay nineties, dude. Go for it.”

“Gay nineties,” says Ted, thinking of nineteenth-century Paris. “Yeah, I can do that. Outstanding fashion.”

“You got that right,” Laney nods, plucking at her jacket.

Ted can totally ace this etiquette thing. If he and Bill are here already, listening to mediocre music and drinking terribly complex cocktails, then they might as well experience all Euphoria had to offer.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, Ted, sorry I took so long. Some Fighting Dudes got called out in the restroom,” Bill says, sneaking up behind Ted’s elbow. He promptly spots Ted’s new acquaintances. “And _hey_ , babes.”

“Was it Jack and Henri again?” the shorter one immediately asks him.

“Uh… I think so.”

The two women turn to each other: “man, those two have really gotta stop making a scene in the men’s room,” says the taller one.

Ted, ever a stickler for formalities, gestures with both hands at him. “Pez, Laney - this is Bill, my most esteemed colleague and musical partner.”

He surveys them, and shakes Pez’s hand. “Tremendous to meet you.”

(“Damn,” Laney mouths to her counterpart, “these kids swallow a dictionary or what?”)

“You want a drink, Ted?”

Ted nods enthusiastically, so Bill flags down the bartender and orders the same again. Laney eyes up his shirt.

“‘Master of Puppets’?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he says, surprised, looking down at the album cover emblazoned across his chest. It had slipped his mind that it’d been what he’d grabbed, already running late when Ted swung by to pick him up.

Ted is chatting with the shorter girl, but he glances up when Metallica is mentioned. “Hey, wait a minute. Is that _my_ shirt?” he asks suspiciously.

“Yeah, dude, I think it might be. You left it in my laundry last time you were over,” Bill says. “I didn’t even notice I was wearing it--” he pauses to pay for their drinks-- “I’ll give it back, promise.”

When he turns back around to hand over the daiquiri, Ted’s standing there looking dazed. “Don’t worry about it, dude,” he says. “Just… whenever.”

Bill doesn’t quite understand what just happened, but he accepts it. Ted seems to start, coughing when Pez elbows him in the ribs.

“We could… We could do a killer hardcore cover of this song, Bill.”

“You think?” Bill says. He stops to listen; it’s The Bangles.

“Totally.”

“I think September Gurls is already a cover, Metalhead,” smirks Laney, “but you could put a hell of a spin on that guitar, I’ll give you that.”

“Really?” asks Ted, grinning in his own (wonderfully endearing) labrador-esque manner. His mop of hair rustles with his enthusiasm.

Laney shrugs. “Hell if I know, kid. If you’re dedicated enough to making it work, then why not, though, right?”

There’s probably a lot Bill can take away from that seemingly non-specific advice, but right now, he doesn’t care. The idea of transforming bouncy, light pop into something faster, something with a little more substance and style, _with his best friend in the whole world--_

He downs the last of his drink, and wonders if Ted knows how important he is.

The man of the moment is currently receiving a sharp shove to the shoulders, like he’s supposed to be doing something else -

“Dude,” he says awkwardly, and swallows, and shrugs, “um, do you wanna, uh, dance?”

Bill brightens. “Absolutely, Ted! We are, of course, musicians of culture. Let’s go culturise ourselves.”

Ted looks like he breathes a sigh of relief, which is ridiculous, because one of Bill’s favourite things to do is dance. “Catch you later, Pez and Laney,” he beams, and Bill’s lead onto the edge of the floor.

He’s pretty sure they can take it easy in here. No moshing. He’s up for it.

“Dude, is this Dead or Alive?” he asks, starting to bob his head to the beat.

“Whoever it is,” Ted calls, “it’s the middle of the song. We should totally dance to a full one.”

They spent a few verses getting familiar with the movements, in a far more laid back style than they’re both used to, until Ted starts flicking his hair about and pointing his hands at the ceiling. It makes laughter bubble up in Bill’s chest. Soon enough, they’re treading circles around each other, slamming their way through ‘Easy Lover’ and somehow attracting more bar patrons to the dance floor.

“Whoops,” says Bill, pulling Ted out of the way of a more vigorous dancer. “‘Scuse us, sir... Uh. Ma’am?”

The dancer turns and grins at them, but doesn’t seem bothered in the slightest by the confusion.

“Apologies, anyways,” Bill concedes. He’s still not totally sure of the rules regarding bar visitation, but he feels like the two of them are getting by just fine.

He realises he’s still got his hand curled in the buttons of Ted’s jacket, and at the same time, Ted pulls him further into his personal space - there’s new dancers that want to pass by behind them, attracted by the new song.

“Thanks, Ted.”

“No problem,” Ted says, letting his hand slip from the back of Bill’s t-shirt. They resume their dancing, but they’re much closer now. The sheer amount of people on the dance floor, increasing as the evening progresses and the songs get more familiar, mean that everyone’s practically shoulder to shoulder.

Bill glances up, feeling far too warm, _far_ too quickly, and Ted’s expression is just as astonished. There’s blue spotlights caught in his pupils, and a disco ball casts momentary glitters into the mix, and his eyes keep flickering across Bill’s face like they’re looking for something.

“New dance?” he asks, looking slightly taken aback by his own speech. Bill follows his friend’s new line of sight, and sees a couple of most well-dressed dudes moving much, much closer to each other than Bill and Ted had been.

“Yeah,” he breathes, and the two of them start to copy. As best as they can, anyway.

It’s…

It’s kinda nice.

Ted’s hand brushes against Bill’s forearm, and he swears that both of them try to outdo each other in the intensity of their face-flushing. The dance floor’s dark, and the synths are choppy, and--

and _oh--_

“I’m starting to get it, now,” Bill says, feeling a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“You are?”

“Feeling good about it, actually,” he continues. The couple next to them, dancing in the same way as the other men from earlier, have backed up against the wall and started to make out. Bill’s never seen anything like that before. Like, two dudes. Kissing. But it _kinda_ makes a lot of sense to him.

Ted swivels around to catch what Bill’s looking at, and returns with raised eyebrows. He’s worrying his bottom lip with his front teeth.

“I think we’re in a gay bar, dude,” he says.

“Oh yeah?”

He winds his fingers into Ted’s belt loops, and gently tugs him closer.

“Yeah.”

There’s steady weights on either side of his neck; Ted’s wrists are bare, where he’s rolled the sleeves of his jacket up to his elbows, and he’s resting his forearms on Bill’s shoulders.

“Do you mind?” Ted says, and Bill isn’t sure if he’s asking if he minds them _being_ in a gay bar, or if he minds that they’re dancing on the dance floor of a gay bar, or if he minds that they’re slowly getting closer and closer. He looks like he doesn’t know whether to be terrified or not. Despite the fact that Ted’s fringe has fallen into his face, as per usual, Bill can still pick out those blue strobe lights and stars, jittering around in his eyes, and makes his decision there and then.

“Do you?” he says, barely loud enough over the rest of the bar, but by this point Ted’s lips are close enough to his own that he can probably feel whatever Bill’s saying.

Bill should stop saying stuff now.

He goes up on tiptoe. Ted’s lips are warm. He’s all sugary from the cocktails, and Bill can feel his nervous little breaths tickle the side of his face. If he’d have known kissing Ted would be this enjoyable, he would’ve done it ages ago - maybe he can get the phonebox and go back to advise his younger self? He gets the feeling Rufus would disapprove, but then Ted’s hands slide up to frame his jaw, and all wayward thought flies out the window.

They’re _kissing_. Bill’s _kissing Ted_ , in _public_. He feels like he should be freaking out, but instead, he feels strangely calm. His body’s stopped dancing of its own accord, occupied by other activities, so he ends up pressed up against his best friend and swaying gently, and it’s probably the most at ease he’s ever felt in his whole life.

“Ted,” he breathes, setting himself back down on flat feet. He doesn’t let go of Ted’s belt loops.

“Bill,” Ted imitates, in an identical tone. He looks like he’s gone a little light-headed.

“We should--”

“I just--”

“Sorry,” yells someone squeezing by, their dance partner in tow, and the two snap out of their dreamy little bubble. Bill uncurls his fingers from Ted’s jacket, smoothing the front of it down, but he doesn’t take his hands back totally.

“Wanna take a break, dude?” he asks, nodding at the door.

“Yeah.”

Bill can feel the muscles in Ted’s middle jump when he speaks. They look at each other for a good few seconds, unsure where to start, until eventually Bill pulls him towards the exit.

As they leave, Ted stumbles and stops. Bill does a double take at the bar, and sees the ladies they were talking to earlier; Pez shoots his counterpart an exaggerated wink. Laney, stony-faced as ever, raises her glass in solidarity.

“C’mon,” he laughs, tugging at Ted’s wrist again and trying desperately not to turn red.

After getting their re-entry stamps from the bouncers - Bill doesn’t smile back at the particularly appreciate one, this time - they burst out into the fresh air. It’s much darker than when they arrived. The little fenced off smoking area has bench seating and ashtrays.

Bill has every intention of sitting down and maybe talking this out, because first and foremost, he would be most upset if the whole situation failed to pan out to their liking, and second of all, he’s pretty tingly and energised and wants to vocalise the saga to make sure it _actually happened_. Unfortunately - or otherwise - Ted crowds him against the brick and huffs laughter into his mouth, and he’s slightly distracted after that point.

“Dude,” he says, grinning when Ted’s palms start to slide over the denim of his shorts. “ _Dude_. We’re outside--”

“Sorry,” Ted breathes, “I just... wanted to do it again.”

So does Bill, so he places both hands on Ted’s face, pulls him back down, and slips his tongue into his mouth. Ted makes an awesome little _hmm!_ noise. It sounds better than every single guitar solo on Iron Maiden’s ‘Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son’. Considering this, Bill loses balance, and knocks back against the brickwork - he accidentally takes Ted into a stumble with him, and--

\--oh.

A little shock of electricity goes all the way down to his toes, from where Ted’s leg has slotted in between his own.

“Ted,” he says, “Ted, dude, you’re totally--”

“I _know_ ,” he replies. “I know.”

“We should go back to the van.”

Raised eyebrows: “the van in the parking lot?”

“I know a place,” Bill reassures him, and has to try very, very hard to look presentable before they walk past the bar staff again. It’s even harder not to casually grab Ted’s hand on the way back, or the drive over. He keeps catching Ted’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Even as he’s giving the directions to the deserted layby off sixty, just past the CBS billboard, he feels most strangely that he wants to stretch out and give his restless fingers the simple comfort they’re after.

(Van Halen don’t know when it’s love - and to be honest, Bill’s not sure it’s love _yet_ \- but he might have a better idea than Sammy Hagar does. It’s when you’re scared of doing something with someone, so you hold their hand.)

Ted hops out of the driver’s seat as soon as they park up. It’s so soon that the dust from the road hasn’t settled yet, and Bill tries to follow so quickly that he chokes a little on his seatbelt. They dart around the warm exterior of the van, meeting again as the exhaust fumes and the dirt clouds dissipate.

When Ted reaches for the handle to the rear doors, Bill’s jumps out to stop him.

They stare at each other.

“Are you sure about this?” Bill asks, feeling like the whole world can hear him. Slick anxiety slides through his lungs like ice water.

Ted doesn’t answer. Through his fringe, his pupils are very, very dark.

He wordlessly pops the catch on the door.

It becomes one big chain reaction, after that simple sound; Bill grabs him by the collar of his shirt, pulls him in for a biting kiss with his eyes squeezed shut, and they manage to manhandle themselves into the back of the van.

It’s sheer luck that they actually packed their guitars away for once, because otherwise the poor things would be taking a beating right now. Bill falls back heavily against the blankets and cushions they were gonna use during late-night songwriting, so their asses wouldn’t get numb sitting on the wooden sheets of the van floor for so long. His counterpart isn’t far behind, easily pulling the doors shut behind him.

Looks like they might be spending the night, now.

He’s in the middle of pushing Ted’s jacket off, running his hands until the material where it sits on his shoulders, when Ted breaks them apart and stares.

“What?” asks Bill.

Ted licks his bottom lip, looking nervous. “Just… Um…”

Bill’s almost afraid Ted’s gonna back out of this whole situation - maybe it was all a big mistake - when--

“Are you comfortable?”

\--when his heart flip-flops pleasantly, and he wrestles Ted back in.

“Yeah,” he laughs, feeling hysterical, “ _yeah_ , dude, are you?”

“Bill. _Totally_ ,” Ted says, slotting his too-tall frame into the space beside Bill. “I am most comfortable, and may never be this comfortable again.”

“I think you may not be correct, Ted,” Bill says, swinging his leg between Ted’s and pushing himself on top. “I think our future holds many repeat events of this particular occasion.”

Ted grins. “I want my shirt back,” he says, and starts untucking it from Bill’s shorts.

It’s only a matter of time before the shirt ends up thrown aside with the jacket, and then Ted’s shirt joins the pile, too, and there’s a sudden, warm expanse of skin available that wasn’t previously. Ted’s only a little stockier than himself, but it’s still a most exciting and _exhilarating_ new experience to trace the outline of abs that aren’t his own.

They tense under his thumbs. Ted _sits up_ , steadying him with firm hands around Bill’s biceps, and Bill absolutely, positively, _sensationally_ melts when he finds he can run his fingertips along the smooth ridges of Ted’s spine.

“Well, you got it back,” he says, muffled around Ted’s mouth.

“Hmm?”

“My shirt. _Your_ shirt. What now?”

“Whatever we want, dude,” Ted smiles, and starts to kiss a trail down from Bill’s neck, into the space where his neck meets his shoulder. It tickles, so Bill laughs, and enjoys the moment, and threads his fingers through Ted’s ridiculously thick hair.

The laugh quickly turns into a moan when he grinds his hips forwards. They topple backwards onto the blanket heap again, and Bill braces himself on either side of Ted’s face, arching his back and dragging his teeth across the skin under Ted’s left ear. Ted fumbles his hands up over Bill’s ass, over the dip in the small of his back, and then makes an attempt at some semblance of dexterity, in undoing the zipper of the front of his shorts.

Bill startles. It turns out quite nicely for the both of them, considering he’s on top, and the only way he can go is _down_.

“We good?” Ted asks breathlessly, and Bill nods furiously, sits up, slides his fingertips under the waistband of Ted’s jeans. Goes for the button. Unfastens it. Ted lifts his hips slightly to help the denim slide down, which is _most_ attractive given that he’s effectively lifting up two people.

“Oh,” Bill mouths, when they jolt back down. He runs the side of his thumb - the same flat edge he holds a guitar pick with - down the gentle ridge of Ted’s hip bone. It takes him a second to collect himself, but _dude_ , he wants this, most strongly and desperately, and a sudden surge of bravery spurs him on.

“You don’t have to,” begins Ted. He sucks in a huge, cold breath through his teeth when Bill runs both hands over the exposed front of his boxers. “But-- you _are_ , so--”

“So relax, doofus,” Bill says. “I wanna, and you’re…”

He bites his lip, and dips his hand under the elastic, below where Ted’s happy trail disappears.

“...I _wanna_.”

Ted looks like he wants to reply, but he exhales sharply, and grabs at the blankets they’re lying on, when Bill takes him in hand. “ _Bill_ ,” he whines, and Bill takes back his hand, spits in it unceremoniously, then puts it back.

It can’t be that difficult. He’s got some introspective practice under his belt, so he holds firmly and moves his hand as best as he can, given that he’s not as well versed in doing so from this side of a belt buckle, until Ted’s twitching erratically beneath him. There’s low noises dragging their way up his throat. Bill wants to kiss his Adam’s apple.

“Way-way-wait,” Ted says, grabbing his forearms. Bill almost scrambles away entirely before he realises that Ted’s pulling him closer, not pushing him _away_. “You-- _Together_ \--”

He seems to have lost the ability to string together coherent clauses, which is most un-Ted-like, but Bill gets the message.

It’s a tangle of uncertain hands and underwear which insists on getting in the way, after that. Ted doesn’t look at what he’s doing, too focused on kissing to tear himself away, but he manages to pull Bill out of his ridiculous shorts and jerks them off together. Bill’s sure that he’s never felt so wired. Everything tastes slightly of strawberry daiquiri still, and they’re rutting together, and the windows are starting to get steamed up. Ted’s hand speeds up, and he throws his head back, so Bill takes advantage of the exposed neck to hum against the stuttering pulse point.

Ted throws together a chain of tiny noises. His leg muscles tense up suddenly, thighs shifting from underneath Bill’s position; the sudden warm wetness between them makes Bill sit back slightly. He’s never been so turned on in his entire life. Ted’s eyes are squeezed shut, mouth widening into a perfect ‘o’ shape, and then he moans like it’s being forced out of his body, and all Bill can do is repeat the sound back to him and bury his face in Ted’s shoulder, because he’s losing it too, and it feels so _good_.

“ _Ted_ ,” he starts, and ends up spilling all over Ted’s stomach before he can think of anything else to say.

It takes him a minute to come back down to earth. Unclenching his hands from the blankets - with considerable effort, mind you - Bill rolls over and collapses next to his counterpart. His stomach is damp.

“That,” Ted says dreamily, “was astronomical.”

He lets his head loll on its side. Bill does the same, and returns a huge grin.

“Yeah,” he says. He’s kinda out of breath, still. “Yeah, dude, it was.”

He lazily grabs at the clothing pile until he fishes out his shirt, and wipes at his abs with it, before tossing it at Ted’s chest.

“This is my shirt,” he protests weakly. He cleans himself off anyway.

Bill looks down and struggles not to laugh; they’ve both still got their shoes on. “Know what, Ted?”

“...What?”

“I don’t think those dudes in the restroom were fighting.”

Ted bursts out laughing, running a hand through his sweaty fringe - practically glowing with happiness. Bill’s overcome with the need to pull him close, so he throws a couple of cushions and a blanket over them, and rolls on his side.

“Is this cool?” he asks, a little more quietly.

The ghost of a grin is still plastered across Ted’s face, and his elbow lurches dangerously close to Bill’s nose. “Lift up, dude,” he says - Bill, befuddled, does so, and Ted winds his arm around his shoulders. Oh. Well, there’s his answer.

“Bill?”

“Uh-huh?”

Ted noses at his temple. “What’s the plan for tomorrow, dude?”

He thinks it over, tracing a line on Ted’s ribs: “write a _rockin’_ riff, or two... Lyrics… More of… More of this?” he ends hopefully.

And Ted pulls the blanket up over them properly, twisting their ankles together. “Mmmm,” he hums, absently tapping at Bill’s shoulder with light fingertips.

It’s easy for them to fall into sleep. Bill slings an arm over Ted’s middle, and lets his eyes drift closed.

Outside, a distant car rumbles down Route 60.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey. Let me know what you thought, lovelies. ♥
> 
> I've got a [writing tumblr](http://futureboy-ao3.tumblr.com), and my main is at [futureboy](http://futureboy.tumblr.com/)! Come say hi, if you want. ^_^


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